by Gary Starta
Jill observed and followed, doing the same. She was on her knees, but her gun was trained on the oncoming van. Sajak took a quick look around for pedestrians, saw none and yanked a 45 caliber from his shoulder holster.
Bull Dog too jacked up with blood lust didn’t notice a thing but a lovely sunny day—a good day to kill. He brought the van to a gentle stop directly in front of the back entrance door. The only thing impeding the van was a row of parked cars. “Should be an easy shot,” Bull Dog said to Sparks. “You’ll be aiming right at his fuckin’ chest I suspect. But I’d prefer if you to take his fuckin’ head off.” He took his hands off the wheel and rubbed them together, relishing the thought with an aching hunger, like he was fantasizing about a food craving. Sparks was on his knees waiting for Bull Dog’s signal that Fishburne had left the bar. When he got it he would swing the van’s side door open and begin the assault.
Carter ambled forward on his knees. He was now in position to take fire on the van. He was concealing himself with the aid of a black Intrepid, crouched before the car’s front grille. Jill followed Carter’s instructions to the letter. She was positioning herself in front of a slate blue Audi.
Carter heard a door creak behind him. He slowly rose, but no more than an inch as he fought the urge to turn around and see if it was really Fishburne. All of his weight was now on his haunches, and his knees were nearly trembling from anxiety. His eyes were glued to the van door. Finally, he heard a metallic groan.
He pointed his gun upward and placed a bullhorn he was holding in his left hand to his mouth.
The door was now open. Carter fired a warning volley.
“Stop right there and throw down your . . . ”
But he couldn’t finish the sentence.
A middle-aged man wore a sick grin and held a very big rifle. He was ignoring him completely. He had Fishburne dead in his sights. Carter saw no other option. He fired at the man, but missed. The bullet pinged off the van harmlessly. Carter rose and began positioning himself in front of Fishburne. “Get down!” he screamed at the PI. But the PI reacted as if a deer caught in headlights, unsure if he should fall to the ground or try to reenter the bar. Jill watched from her vantage point. She saw Fishburne from the corner of her eye. She mumbled, “I can’t believe this. He’s going to try and get back into a locked building.”
Jill fired two shots not for the purpose of providing cover for Carter, but for herself. She was running, heading straight for Fishburne, ignoring everything Carter had told her.
A shot, heavy, booming and thunderous followed her footsteps. Fortunately, the shot missed her, bounced off of concrete, ricocheting dangerously close to the vicinity of Carter. On the floor of the van, returning to his former self, Sid Auerbach had managed to kick the back of Spark’s right leg, momentarily causing him to lose balance and miss his shot at Jill.
Auerbach screamed hoarsely, warning Fishburne to take over.
“Get the hell down, Jay. Get the hell down. It’s an ambush!”
Fishburne apparently heard the warning and fell to his knees, his face completely drained of color.
Carter screamed for Jill to stop but he couldn’t afford to turn his back.
He had the shooter dead in his sights, as he resumed his crouched stance in front of the Intrepid. He would have to wait for the right moment, when the shooter paused to aim for a second too long or must pause to eject a spent shell casing and to reload a new shell into the weapon’s breech. Carter suspected this was a sniper rifle with bolt action, which would cause the shooter to stop after each shot. It was the only logical deduction because if the shooter was firing an automatic weapon, he, Jill and Fishburne would have likely resembled raw hamburger right now.
Carter sensed another shot. In the second he hesitated to fire he noticed what appeared to be a struggle going on in the van. But he couldn’t see into the van, the sun was casting its last rays of the day directly into his eyes. The sun was also preventing him from getting a good view of the van’s driver. He squinted and took the opportunity to shoot out the van’s front tire as consolation. Then he yelled again for Jill to get down.
Sparks crouched, used his gun like a staff, pile driving it into Auerbach’s midsection causing a howl of agony.
Now back on his feet and steady, Sparks was ready to fire again.
Carter shot wildly and his bullet careened off the van’s opened door. It took a wild bounce and hit the shooter, grazing his shirt.
In the nanosecond of time it took for the gunman’s shirt to turn crimson red, a bullet was released. Carter heard it whiz by his head. And he turned slowly, fearing the worst.
Jill’s back was turned. She was pulling Fishburne by the arm, forcing him to come off his knees and to lie flat on the ground. And as she struggled, she was suddenly forced to stop by the locomotive impact of what must have felt like a train inside a bullet. She flinched, pushed forward by the blast, and then was immediately yanked backward as if pulled by invisible strings in reaction to it. She rocked on her feet and then sprawled to the ground, landing face first on top of Fishburne. She was still. Motionless.
Carter wanted to race to her aid, but he couldn’t. In the time he had taken to observe her shooting, he had lost a valuable opportunity to return fire. He must wait for another shot to be launched. This time the weapon was aimed at him. He ducked, but the shot was not on target, it skimmed off the roof of the car.
Carter scrambled back into position. He was ready to take aim, but now another obstacle blocked him. Detective Sajak had also disobeyed orders, jumping the fence. Hoping to surprise the shooter, Sajak was on the roof of the van, lying over it, his arms wrapped about the shooter’s rifle. The struggle didn’t last long. The shooter baited him for a second, allowing him to take half possession of the rifle before he yanked the gun back forcing Sajak forward. He was precariously close to falling over the edge of the van and into the direct path of the gunman. As Sajak slid forward, he balled his hand around his 45 caliber Browning and attempted to club the shooter over the head. But the shooter swatted away Sajak’s feeble attempt using his gun to bash the detective’s hand in the process. The gun was forced loose and fell, skidding along pavement before coming to a rest. Carter wanted to fire upon the gunmen but wouldn’t, not as long as Sajak was dangling over the roof and in his line of fire.
As Sajak struggled to stay atop the van, the shooter ducked from him. He swung the van door shut. “Now it’s your turn to die, pig,” Sparks said. “Only it’s going to be too quick a death for my tastes.”
Bull Dog shouted, crouched, face plastered against the dashboard for protection.
“We’ve got to abort the plan. Fuck Fishburne. Waste Auerbach and let’s go.”
“Only too happy to oblige.” But in the time Sparks had taken to trade conversation with Bull Dog, Auerbach had managed to writhe along the floor and had clamped his teeth into Spark’s right ankle.
“Ouch! You fuckin’ son of a whore.” Sparks clubbed Auerbach over the head, forcing him to release his grip. “Reincarnation or not, Buddha’s going to be able to sip your karmic guts through a straw!”
One round to the back of the head is all it took to splatter Sid Auerbach’s brain matter all over the van’s walls and upholstery.
“Sorry you couldn’t see your friend die,” Sparks said to Auerbach’s remains.
Bull Dog shouted to Sparks, “you gonna be able to make it?”
“Shit, yeah. I caught one on my side. But I think it only grazed me. Probably a flesh wound or I’d be down and out like our friend, Auerbach.”
“Well, leave the recording and on my mark we open the door and make a run for it.”
“But how we gonna get past these fuckin’ cops?”
“Distraction.” Bull Dog smiled and removed a tear gas grenade from underneath the driver’s seat along with a rifle propped between the seats. “I’ll shoot this baby right through the window and by the time it takes effect our ride should be here.”
He prepare
d to fire the canister but heard a knock coming from behind him. It was Sajak. This time he was draped over the opposite side of the van. “Fuckin’ pig!” Bull Dog shouted. He rolled down the window and grasped the intruder’s arm. “Going down? With one violent jerk, Bull Dog sent Sajak spiraling to the pavement. He laughed as he heard the man groan. “Now where was I?”
But as he prepared to launch the canister through the passenger side window, another intruder had appeared. He saw a brown haired man, the detective who had been firing upon them from behind a car.
“Well chicken shit finally got some guts.”
At the last instant, Carter observed Bull Dog cocking his gun. He fell away from the window, stumbling along the side of the van to regain balance. But before he could, Sparks had begun to reopen the sliding side door. Carter was sprawled on the ground. He had lost his gun from the fall.
“Ah, come to papa,” Sparks said, relishing the moment, Carter was at his mercy and when he was out of the way, Sparks mumbled to himself, he’d take out that female bitch cop and that wannabe detective Fishburne like they were fish in a barrel.
And as Sparks cocked his gun, he saw his plan go to hell.
A 9mm handgun was pointed directly in his face. A woman’s voice commanded him to drop his weapon.
“Not fuckin’ likely.”
He batted his rifle at the woman’s arm, but she swung away from it, keeping her grip upon the gun. Now the gunman was training his rifle back upon her. But as he was about to fire, a blast ripped through the passenger side window. Bull Dog had unleashed the canister. And as Jill instinctively backed away from the van in response to the blast, she heard a whirring noise directly overhead.
She had lost direct sight of her attacker. He might very well have her dead to rights should she position herself back in front of the open door. Instinct told her this wasn’t the case. She whirled back to her last position, legs spread, both hands gripped about her weapon. Without hesitation, she shot at the man who was struggling to release a spent shell from the rifle. She hit the man in the stomach sending him spiraling backwards. He dropped the gun as he fell to his knees, a surprised expression plastered about his face.
Carter scrambled to his feet, “Jill?” he asked, more than said.
“What you think I didn’t wear my Kevlar vest?”
But a round of what appeared to be machine gun fire reigned down from above and interrupted their conversation.
Carter felt his eyes sting. He looked at Jill and she was wiping tears from her eyes. “Tear gas. We’ve got to take cover.” He pulled her by the left arm and scrabbled to the nearest car. But before he could push Jill underneath it, a shot rang out. It had come from the van. Bull Dog was standing on top of the vehicle. A rope ladder was dangling just above him. He no longer was training his gun upon them, too focused on his escape, the helicopter hovered from above.
Carter returned his eyes to Jill’s pant leg, between her thigh and her calf there was only red. She’d been hit. Carter turned toward the attacker but couldn’t see through the tears. Immobilized by the gas, he rolled toward the next available car, hoping to scramble underneath it. He could only pray that Jill had taken full cover and to make matters worse, he had no idea how Fishburne was doing or Sajak for that matter. Apparently, the rapid gunfire had come from above, possibly from a helicopter. And if his ears hadn’t deceived him, this fire was from an automatic weapon. This meant taking cover probably wouldn’t be enough to save their lives since even one shot to any of the vehicle’s gas tanks might kill them all.
Carter knew he couldn’t play it safe. He’d have to delay the portly man on the van from making an escape. If he got away a full out aerial assault would be launched upon them. But before Carter could even get back on his feet, he squinted and saw (but didn’t quite believe) Sajak crawling out from underneath the van. Despite his fall and the tear gas, Sajak had managed to retrieve his gun.
Carter shouted no. He could see the scene playing out in slow motion in his mind.
The portly man on the vehicle appeared to be protected from the gas; he was wearing some kind of plastic mask over his face. But instead of gripping the rope to make his escape, he hesitated, noticing Sajak. He had Sajak dead in his sights. Both men fired, simultaneously. Each of them took a hit. Sajak’s wound was to his neck. The portly man had been hit in the leg. He finally grabbed at the rope ladder with both hands in panic. He placed his left leg onto the first rung, but his wounded leg, the right leg, wouldn’t cooperate. The portly man signaled thumbs up. He shouted for the pilot to go. “Take it up. I can’t climb any further!”
Carter heard the man was struggling. He could no longer see from the gas, his eyes stinging, totally blurred and tearing.
He stumbled to his feet and aimed his gun, both hands wrapped about it, entrenched in a shooter’s stance.
Carter was essentially blind but he couldn’t let the portly man escape. Instinct told him Sajak had been critically injured and was possibly dead if not dying. He couldn’t let this officer die in vain. Sajak sacrificed himself to fulfill his wish—not to let the perps escape.
Carter struggled to listen to the portly man’s voice. But for the most part, all he could hear was the whirring of the chopper’s blades. He was totally vulnerable. The pilot was fully capable of taking him out with an aerial shot, but Carter betted the pilot wouldn’t risk an explosion, not until he could navigate the chopper away to a safe distance and that was not going to happen anytime soon because the portly man was still struggling with the ladder. Carter was also sure the portly man wouldn’t take him out either. He was too intent on making a getaway now that he had been injured.
Carter listened again, willing himself to remove the chopper’s noise from his head, willing himself to forget about how much he wanted to drop everything and rush to Jill’s side. He engaged himself in a breathing technique called kapalbhati—it involved strong and forceful exhalations. As Carter’s mind cleared, he forgot the danger he was in, he forgot about Jill’s injury, the way his eyes burned ever so painfully from the tear gas, and he pictured himself standing in a completely white room. He was white himself here. The only blackness was the target, the portly man attempting escape. Nothing else existed. One by one, all extraneous material was removed. The parked cars, the rope ladder, the chopper itself—Carter stood in isolation except for his target who was too busy swearing at his shit luck for letting Spark’s emotions get the better of him. He cursed and cried. The sounds were muffled from his protective mask. Carter homed in on the curses. He shifted his weight, retrained his gun, locked in on his target, took aim, and ever so slowly his finger pulled back the trigger.
Boom! The gun’s report removed the final black piece from Carter’s white room. He heard the man’s one last muffled cry of pain. And Carter overwhelmed by the experience and the gas, could only feel his body crumple, unable to hold his weight any longer. He fell to the ground helpless, vulnerable; waiting for the chopper to unleash all hell from above.
But nothing happened. The sound of the chopper became smaller with each passing second. Carter could only surmise it had retreated, he could now hear police sirens and reasoned the pilot opted to save his own ass and bailed on the two cons. Then everything faded to blackness.
Carter regained consciousness on a gurney. He didn’t know how much time had passed. Officer Jamieson was standing over him. They were in what appeared to be a hospital.
“Jill? Where is she . . . ?”
Jamieson assured him she was fine. “She’s in surgery. The bullet has been removed and she’ll recover.”
Carter’s voice was too strained from the tear gas. He motioned at his throat. “Can’t talk.”
“That’s all right. Let me fill in the blanks for you.”
Jamieson explained how Sajak, Auerbach and the two men—police had yet to identify—all died at the scene. He told him Fishburne was unharmed except for a near emotional breakdown. Officers found Fishburne knocking weakly upon the bar’
s locked door, crying and his pants were wet with urine.
But Jamieson saved the most intriguing news for last.
“We found this at the scene.” Jamieson handed Carter a cassette tape enclosed in a baggie. It was addressed specifically to his attention.
Chapter 22
“Officer Jamieson I want you to take this to tape to the crime lab and give it to Ben Meyers. Please follow the chain of custody to the letter.”
“Got it, Detective,” Jamieson said to Carter. “You know I’ve heard of Meyers, he specializes in identifying voices, right?” But Jamieson didn’t pause for Carter to answer. “I’ve got a suspicion the voice you’re trying to match is one of the gunmen—and if so—what are you going to use for a comparison?”
“Please let me worry about that. Right now, I need Mr. Meyers to begin analyzing the tape, to make sure it’s of high enough quality to use in a spectrograph test. But before you go, can you tell me where Mr. Fishburne is?”
“Sure, he’s in protective custody—this time he’s fully cooperating—no surprise.”
“Thanks, Officer. Now I’d appreciate your haste.”
“Got it.” As Jamieson hustled for the nearest exit, Carter began fumbling for his cell. Unable to find it, he unbuckled the harnesses tethering him to the gurney. Ambling out of the emergency area, he spied a reception desk. He staggered over to it and requested a phone to the receptionist’s dismay.
“You can’t be here. You aren’t released yet.”
“Ma’am. You’ve got to let me use a phone.”
“And why should I do that?”
“Because a woman’s life is on the line and this is police business.”
Carter managed to dig his shield from his pocket and flashed it before her.
With pursed lips the exasperated nurse handed him a phone.
Carter spoke quickly to Fishburne who was seated on a bench, back slumped against a wall, muttering acknowledgements into a phone from his cell.
“You’ve got to convince Lucy, Jay. Make her come in or let her know an officer will bring her in if she needs a ride. Tell her I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to spook her the other day. But Jay, ultimately you’ve got to say whatever it takes to convince her that her life is in jeopardy.”